EXPERIMENTAL AND THEORETICAL STUDIES OF $Mn_{2}(CO)_{10}$

Abstract

Ground state resonance Raman spectroscopy, Fenske-Hall molecular orbital calculations, and density functional theory were utilized to study the photochemistry of $Mn_{2}(CO){10}$ in an attempt to understand better the photochemical reaction pathways of dinuclear transition metal organometallic complexes. In this work, resonance enhancement of the $\epsilon{3}$ Mn-C-O bending mode, the $\epsilon_{3}$ C-O stretching vibration and the $a_{1}$ Mn-Mn bond stretch are found to play an important role in the resonance Raman spectra of $Mn_{2}(CO){10}$. These data, together with the theoretical calculations, are consistent with the proposal that the photochemical intermediate $Mn{2}(CO)_{9}$ contains a linear semi-bridging CO.